March – what goes on in our lives

March has a one week school holiday and we did quite many things together as a family. This monthly wrap up post is really a good way for me to check on our family activities and ensuring we have sufficient family bonding time and time for play.

Taking time off from work for the kids

During the 1 week school holidays, I took 2 days off from work to bring the kids out. On the first day, I planned a visit to the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum together with the grandparents. We went to sing Karaoke later on. My kids love to sing, and half the singing session was for them to sing their favourite songs. Mind you, the songs they sang were adult ballads and fast numbers, not the kiddie songs. And seeing that we have still some time, we took a leisurely walk at Labrador Park and saw a Holland cruise ship which was exiting to the sea up close! How lucky we were! At dinner, we took a visit to where granny works in a childcare centre. The visit intrigued the kids as they seemed to be impressed that their grandma is still active in the workforce as an assistant teacher teaching little ones just like when they were young.

I am sure by now you know that we love to bring the grandparents and the kids out together. I can’t emphasize enough to the kids that their parents love their grandparents and we place great importance on family relationship and respect our own parents. Hence, as much as we can, we will invite the elders to join us.

Family

On the second day, Master 9 had a playdate. We met over breakfast at Mac Donald’s, had 2 games of bowling, went for a good lunch, and visited Art Science Museum – Future World. It was a good meet up with the mummies who are pretty much in touch even though our kids are not in the same class.

Artscience

Family Bonding Time

We also went to Gardens by the Bay to catch the Sakura in full blossom. There is a Children’s Garden in Gardens by the Bay. This is the first time we checked out this free playground. It is really popular judging by the crowd on a sweltering hot day!

On the long weekend of Good Friday, we celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday. My brother-in-law booked the multi-purpose hall in Temasek Club. We brought along badminton racquets, volleyballs, put on running shoes and played ball games with young and old. After that, we swam in the pool and had a good dinner together.

Childrens Garden

Jogging with the kids 

I have started to bring the kids to jog with me on Sunday mornings. For consecutive two Sundays, I took one kid to run with me in the neighbourhood. It happened that the other one could not wake up early enough and so I had one on one bonding with one child each time. They have been wanting to jog with me ever since they know I do that occasionally after they go to school. I treasure each and every second of bonding time and weekends are the best time to do so. We will be doing this regularly. Last Sunday, we took a break from jogging and went to the Ang Mo Kio Playground. I love to have the family wake up early on Sundays so that we can have breakfast together, or visit the playground or somewhere nature. I find it a bliss that the 3 children played harmoniously together and I no longer hear Missy 11 tell me that she does not like the sand. Also the hubby finally read the book that I had so highly recommended to him – When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, a New York Times Best Seller.

When Breath Becomes Air

The kids are finally reading!!

Talking about reading, ever since a close friend introduced the book Everything I Never Told you by Celeste Ng, also a New York Times Best Seller, I had been going on a book hunt spree. I started picking up reading and guess what, this might have a positive influence on my kids and they are now into reading too! You will never know how much effort I have put in to get them into reading a chapter book. I think good habits are best learnt by action than taught. Maybe I will write a book review to get busy mums like me to pick up reading.

Picnic in our bedroom

I took the kids to a movie treat when the hub was on biz trip and I ended up bringing the toddler to the washroom thrice. Apparently, how the innocent sheep was discovered as a baddie in Zootopia, I never knew. We had an impromptu picnic at home in the kids bedroom that night. It only takes an impromptu simple surprise to leave a deep happy childhood memory in them and me. I love such surprises, be it surprising others or getting surprised.

Picnic in bedroom

Nurturing relationships

One evening when Kel came to pick me from work, I told him that I wanted to go to the beach before heading home. It had been a long while since we had a leisure walk along the beach and enjoyed the sea breeze accompanied by the sound of crashing waves. It was a good moment. On another day, I took a day’s off to pamper myself at the spa, after which I brought my laptop to blog at Starbucks with a Matcha frappucino beside me. It felt good to be off work and to do something I like while sipping something I enjoy. Kel met me after that and seeing that we were early for our dinner date, we went to the place where he proposed to me 11 years back. I felt as though it was our wedding anniversary. We had a terrific dinner but the night ended with an anti-climax – I had to dial in to a conference call with the CFO 🙁

Date

On the day of the eclipse, I also went on a date as rare as the occurence of the eclipse with my BFF. She is a busy woman and busy mum. Hence, getting her out on a girl date is probably harder than an appointment with the CEO. We had a wonderful shopping trip and chatted from the time we met to the last second when she had to ran out the train door. That’s so much to talk to each other!

I visited my grandma on my off day too and decided that I should visit her more often from now on.

BFF
Me and my BFF

Lessons from competitions

Missy 11 and Master 9 each has his/her competitions happening in this month and the next. Missy 11 and her volleyball team got into the Round 2 of the National Volleyball championship and the tough fight will be happening in early April. Master 9 is actively participating in Go Game competition and will be representing his school too. Both had their fair share of winnings and losses. My message for them is very clear: Believe in yourself. Never underestimate your own capabilities and go all out to enjoy the games. I told them that even losing is a good experience and always learn from failures and never be complacent. Good luck to my darlings!

Whoa! March is so fulfilling in my opinion! I am so happy that we did quite many things together. I am looking forward to April too but it will not be as carefree as in March since the examinations are coming up. We will strike a balance though and ensure the children have sufficient play time.

I hope March went well for you and let’s look forward to April!

9 thoughts on “March – what goes on in our lives”

  1. Wow, you had a fulfilling March! Envy the time you have with the kids. I need to keep up too, LOL.

    BTW, you are not alone in not finding out how the sheep turn into the baddie. We brought the elder two there too. And my boy was “scared” after the scene at the “prison” where the animals were held by the mayor. And he requested to leave. So my husband brought him and my girl who was bored after finishing her popcorn out. So they never got to find out what happened. LOL. But the baddie Mummy manage to finish the show. 😛

    1. I think Zootopia is a show for older kids and adults. My boy did not really understand the plot and the meaning of the show. It embraces diversity and differences which I find only those who have life experiences will be able to relate.
      I am enjoying the monthly wrap up. We tend to let the busy schedule toll us along and once I do the sum up of what we did, I could see if we did enough or need to do more.

  2. What a fruitful and memorable Month! I was trying to catch my breath reading through your events…lol
    We enjoyed Zootopia and watched at JB..cheaper. : ) Ya a lot of deep stuffs there. Is the Art science museum worth it? I heard a new exhibition is on. Is it this current one that you went?

    1. I have never watched in Malaysia. Are the cinemas good? The ArtScience museum is showing the new Future World exhibition. Yes that is the most current one right now that you see on many fb feeds 🙂 Do go on Fridays when kids go free!

  3. That was a lot packed into March! Love that you were able to make time for your husband and friend, on top of the kids and grandparents!! I have found it is so much harder to have grown up friends because so many don’t take the time to nurture the relationship and it fades away

    1. March is really packed. I don’t expect April and May have much though as the exams are round the corner. We will try to strike a balance. Many of my married friends with kids do not meet up as often too. Only those that have supportive spouse or believe in finding time to nurture relationship will meet up. It is so sad to have so many friends ‘drop out’ along the way.

  4. That is a lot of lovely things for one month! Love the way you try to create time for the people you love and are not forgetting your husband either 😉

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